Posted
by
Soulskill
on Monday November 01, 2010 @04:03PM
from the it's-not-easy-being-green dept.

Harperdog writes "This article describes the efforts by some in the Pentagon to save lives by using renewable energy in the battlefield. 'Seventy percent of all convoys carried liquid fossil fuels, and attacks on convoys ... account for about half of all the casualties. Generators consumed more of the fuel brought in than did combat vehicles and air support.' It's a good description of energy efficient projects already happening in Iraq. '... the first significant response in a combat zone came with the investment of almost $100 million for insulating thousands of tents in the two war zones. Before, air conditioners in summer and heaters in winter powered by generators controlled the climate inside the tents used as barracks, dining halls and offices. Now they spray foam so it covers the exterior of the tents like shaving cream. Foaming the tents saves the military $2 million a day in avoided energy costs. This translates into a payback of less than two months. It saves 100,000 gallons of fuel per day, taking 4,000 trucks off the road each year."

I sometimes wonder how often the idea "We could eliminate 100% of American troop casualties if we just kill everybody else in the world. if there is nobody else to fight, then we don't have to send anybody over there, and we eliminate all possibility of getting shot by enemy forces" surfaces in high level discussions.

I'm thinking the only reason it gets shot down is because they then realize they'd be out of their jobs.

I sometimes wonder how often the idea "We could eliminate 100% of American troop casualties if we just kill everybody else in the world. if there is nobody else to fight, then we don't have to send anybody over there, and we eliminate all possibility of getting shot by enemy forces" surfaces in high level discussions.

I'm going to guess just about never, except in your histrionic fever dreams where everybody in the military is an unstoppable bloodthirsty murderer who just wants to kill everybody else around them.

I had a professor when I was and undergrad flat out tell the class she was lecturing that everyone who volunteered for the US military did so to kill and everyone in the military was a killer.

In her mind and world view if you are in a military you murder people.

Well put it this way, if you voluntarily join the military you shouldn't complain when you are ordered to kill people.

The argument that most people join for the training and education opportunities, plus the chance to play at grown up Scouts is ingenuous at best. Even if you join the catering corps or something, you are still trained how to kill people efficiently.

I don't think this is a bad thing (there is little point in having an entirely pacifist military force) merely that it is hypocritical to pr

Granted, this isn't directly like some of the more egregious examples. Usually, "saving lives" involves killing more of "them".

I know you're being facetious, but the idea of "saving lives" in this case is like the phrase "a penny saved is a penny earned." They're not actually saving lives, so much as not spending them. Yes, I find it ironic.

I had a roommate in college who was studying Mechanical Engineering, interned with, and was later hired at, a company that designed and made light weapons (pistols, rifles, etc.). He justified it as saving American lives.

Go to these places and see how long you last without AC. The real WTF, is why they are taking so long to build more permanent structures, or leaving. This in the middle BS is costing us a fortune.

Really. For all of the 'tent money' they've spent, they could have dug in, literally, with buried structures that would be safer, cheaper and very useful for the enemy once we pull out.

Oh, wait. (Actually even permanent emplacements that were used by enemy forces once we've moved out could be quite valuable for us. Nothing like knowing exactly what to expect and where the literal back doors are).

Unless those are some amazingly tough Kevlar tents, I'm guessing security is achieved through a means other than bombproofness. Really, you're looking at the durability of wooden outhouses in World War 2 Italy: not very bullet proof, but guarded by tanks.

Seriously though, you can survive in very hot places without AC, you just can't _do_ all that much. At over about 40 degrees in the shade, your body expends most of its energy trying to get cool. AC just allows you to function fully all day long, it's not technically necessary (at least if not fighting a war). It hit 50 degrees in the shade a couple of times when I was there.

That being said, I (obviously) wasn't living in temporary structures over there, like tents

"Go to these places and see how long you last without AC"My understanding is that people have lived in these places for the last 30,000 years or so, some people have a magic secret that hasn't been cracked by the US military then. And unfortunately in most of these places as well as building civilisations they've also proved its perfectly possible to wage wars, from the Pharoahs to Alexander and to the present.

So the US military can only fight where there is aircon? A secret weakness revealed! best keep tha

Yeah I know, it's not like the United States ever takes whole carrier groups and parks them off of impoverished third world nations that have just endured a hurricane or an earthquake. Doctors from all branches certainly haven't slaved over nearly innumerable numbers of battered and wounded refugees supported by an immense web of logistics paid for by the American taxpayer with no questions asked. Supplies are never airlifted nor delivered by sea to airfields and ports secured by US servicemen. Yeah, what fucking irony, you ignorant and blind ideologue shitheads.

(Here the epithet "shitheads" is applied as much or more to the replies of this thread than the parent.)

"No questions asked"? I dunno about that. While I appreciate your point, I suggest those humanitarian efforts serve America's interests, just as the military action in Afghanistan and Iraq are proposed to do.
America is many things, but "Altruistic" isn't on the list - at least at the Geo-Political level.

Yeah, and the ambulance company sends you a bill too, does that mean you spit in the EMT's eyes? Whether somebody's life is saved by 'pure altruism' or some geopolitical machination is immaterial to the fact that the person's life was saved, and some people had to work damn hard to do it, regardless of whether they were paid or that was 'just their job,' that doesn't negate that hard work was done to save lives.

The hard work WASN'T done to "save lives". It was done to advance America's interests. We aren't a goddamn charity. Especially when we use our military resources. They are expensive and worth every penny. Those humanitarian efforts are just as much a "projection of force" as dropping bombs. Just more subtle. Additionally, it helps maintain the political will to support our military. A win for America. We get to flaunt our power, without incurring casualties. A very effective way to fight, actually.

As a veteran, I appreciate what our military does and how well they do it. What I don't do is fool myself about the motives of their masters. Or them, either. In the final analysis they are Warriors.

Yeah I know, it's not like the United States ever takes whole carrier groups and parks them off of impoverished third world nations that have just endured a hurricane or an earthquake. Doctors from all branches certainly haven't slaved over nearly innumerable numbers of battered and wounded refugees supported by an immense web of logistics paid for by the American taxpayer with no questions asked. Supplies are never airlifted nor delivered by sea to airfields and ports secured by US servicemen. Yeah, what fucking irony, you ignorant and blind ideologue shitheads.
(Here the epithet "shitheads" is applied as much or more to the replies of this thread than the parent.)

You don't need a heavily armed, aggressive military to do humanitarian and rescue work, you ignorant and blind ideologue shithead.

Granted, this isn't directly like some of the more egregious examples. Usually, "saving lives" involves killing more of "them".

Exactly what I was going to say! That's just so nice and cute, an ecological, energy-efficient, responsible, life-saving... global military-corporate empire! Marketing bluffs can create the most amazing bluffing baloney...

I was actually talking to a commander in the army about this the other day. The military isn't out there to kill. It's out to complete missions. These missions are designated by people above them in the rank chain, who know more about the situation than they do. Killing is not the goal. Killing is sometimes the means to complete a mission, and the Army is one of the few groups where killing, and dying, are acceptable ways of meeting specific goals. But it's all about the particulars of the mission.

I was actually talking to a commander in the army about this the other day. The military isn't out there to kill. It's out to complete missions. These missions are designated by people above them in the rank chain, who know more about the situation than they do. Killing is not the goal. Killing is sometimes the means to complete a mission, and the Army is one of the few groups where killing, and dying, are acceptable ways of meeting specific goals. But it's all about the particulars of the mission.

In theory, there is no reason why the military has to be involved in anything more than accidental deaths. In practice, the world is full of bastards who need to be shot. But anything that helps the military achieve their objectives more cleanly and quickly will probably save lives.

If your aim is to overthrow Saddam Hussein or the Taliban by sending in your military and forcing regime change, how exactly will that not involve killing people as a primary function of your mission?

When the cost of safely delivering gasoline in-theatre is $400/gal [thehill.com], any non-trivial reduction in fuel consumption will result in a serious cost savings for the military. I'm all for this.

He didn't say, "Fire all police, get rid of the FBI, CIA, and NSA, disband the army, navy, marines, and airforce."

The former is quite sensible. Iraq and Afghanistan can't be won the way, say, WW2 was. There's no one in charge to surrender and no standing army to be told to lay down arms. Rather than bitching about people supposedly wanting the US to lose, they could see reality for what it is and cut their loses before they waste more lives and more money for absolutely nothing.

That's why they aren't being fought like WW2 was. Or even Vietnam or Desert Storm for that matter. Hell, even top military planners acknowledge that in the current strategy, counterinsurgency, the military aspect is only a small part of much larger effort. The media tends to focus on the military aspect and service members might make up the bulk of the personnel involved, but that doesn't mean that military operations make up the bulk of the operations.

Take the time to read a book on the rise of the Taliban some time ("Taliban" by Ahmed Rashid is a fantastic example). They rose to power precisely because all the world powers chose to ignore Central Asia. The nature of the Taliban regime is one such that their support for terrorism was and is a foregone conclusion. Do you think that if the US left Afghanistan today that the Taliban wouldn't just reassume power? Do you think that they wouldn't continue to support terrorists once they did reassume power? Do you think we wouldn't just end up back there another 10 years from now saying, "How'd we end up back here again?"

Violence in Iraq has dropped to levels not seen since OIF I and is continuing to drop. For context, the level of violence is actually lower than the Second Intifada was in Israel. The counterinsurgency strategy proved itself in Iraq and its already started to show success in Afghanistan. We need to see this through now, so that don't find ourselves back there in another decade wondering why we're spending soldiers' lives to do a job that should have been done right the first time....and before anyone dares to accuse me of being frivolous with lives, I'll add this: I'm an American soldier, serving as a combat engineer (the guys who go out and find IEDs the hard way), and I believe absolutely in our mission and means of achieving it in Afghanistan. Regardless of what our ulterior motives may be, we are helping people over there and doing the right thing.

Good post, but I would object to a couple points. The Taliban didn't rise because world powers chose to ignore Afghanistan. Quite the opposite. Most of the Taliban leaders were educated in madrassas located in Pakistan, and are heavily influenced by Saudi religious tenets (Wahhabism). Bin Laden is a Saudi (although disowned by his native government), and the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan was facilitated by Saudi and Pakistani intelligence. The Taliban most likely would not have taken power outside of Kandahar and the surrounding provinces without foreign aid. They might not have been able to take Kandahar itself.

The Soviets left and the US basically ignored Afghanistan during the 90's, but there has never been a time that foreign powers didn't control Afghani politics. At least for the last couple hundred years.

Do you think that if the US left Afghanistan today that the Taliban wouldn't just reassume power? Do you think that they wouldn't continue to support terrorists once they did reassume power?

In which case the US should intervene in Pakistan and Saudi Arabia (to name but two) as well. They're both a lot more powerful and well off than Afghanistan, and without doubt responsible for more terrorism than it.

So the best way to avoid conflict is to wait until one side completely subjugated its own people into forming a large, traditional style military force before attacking foreign countries? Isn't that exactly how WW2 started in the first place?

Yes, that would make more sense, because then it is possible to win the war, if there is a single
leader to concede defeat. Even quite quickly, as Iraq '91 showed.

I'm not - war should be expensive, both in lives & financial sense, preferably for all parties involved.

Countries should avoid going into a war at all costs. Even it improves things on your side of the war, that might mean the same investment (in money & lives) on your side translates into more casualties on the other side. While you may think of that as improvement, it also makes it easier to stamp out an enemy that has every right to be fighting you, or makes it easier to get into a war you sho

No, countries should understand and be very clear on the principles they consider non-negotiable, that they are willing to fight and die for. Avoiding war 'at all costs' means you might as well just roll over and let the closest despot with a gun take over.

And if it's a democracy, the citizens should educate themselves and stop voting for people who send young men and women to fight and die in engagements that do not match up with the principles that country has decided are worth fighting and dying for.

There's always something worth fighting, and even dying for, if necessary. If the only determining factor in whether or not you go to war is "how much will it cost?" then you have serious moral and ethical problems endemic to your government, and by extension, endemic to your citizenry.

If it's a case where my country has said, "X is worth fighting and dying for," then I want "X" to be achieved at the lowest cost possible - in terms of economics, in terms of lives of my fellow citizens, and in terms of lives of the civilians on the other side, with the business end of the gun pointed at them.

And if it's a democracy, the citizens should educate themselves and stop voting for people who send young men and women to fight and die in engagements that do not match up with the principles that country has decided are worth fighting and dying for.

That is hard to do since unscrupulous bastards do things like lie about an American ship under attack to justify butting into a petty French Colonial war. I can't remember the lie later that justified sending in the US Navy on Saddam's side against Iran but it

The president is authorized to respond to an attack without the mandate of congress for 90 days. If he wants to go to war with another country without first being attacked, he needs a congressional vote.

I feel like for optional "humanitarian" wars like Iraq, there really ought to be a public referendum. I don't think anyone elected the harmless, dottering Bush Jr thinking that he would get us into the most expensive and intractable optional wars since Vietnam. He just seemed like it was going to spend hi

I know I'll never get on a bumper sticker writing things like that, but somebody needs to call people out when they start parroting sound-bites, clever catch-phrases, and superficial absolutes, rather than discussing the nuance and subtletly involved in a very messy, very analog, and very complex issue.

Foaming the tents saves the military $2 million a day in avoided energy costs.

If it's a semi-permanent base, couldn't they also have invested in earth-covered buildings? Covered with a yard or so of earth they might also provide a better defense against small arms fire and shrapnel.

Where are you going to get the earth? The foam and application equipment can be used even on small fire bases that can only be resupplied by air. You can ship a bulldozer by air, but it will have to leave to base to go dig up dirt. Big target. If the ground is soft enough to dig up easily, do you think the local who owns the land will be happy about it? The foam can be applied quickly and eaisly to already existing structures in all environments.

But the whole problem is logistics - hauling stuff in a combat zone is hard.

When packed, a small 13x13ft tent takes up a space around 5 ft x 2 ft x 2 ft and weighs around 400 lbs.

You can fit around 50 of them in a single 20' container, and each tent will provide more square footage than than 20' container. You say that the containers can be buried, but are they safety rated for burial, and can they withstand corrosion after a year or more of burial in wet ground?

You need shelter for troops long you worry about heating/cooling and long before you worry about insulation. The tents will always be there before there is any time to give thought to insulating them. More complicated solutions will work when expanding pre-existing bases with a long time to plan and prepare. The foam will work on any base of any size in any theater- That is the big advantage.

If fuel is so difficult to deliver there, then I'm not sure that bringing in 2000 lbs of wood and other materials to build an underground shelter is going to be cheaper than a 200 pound tent even if it saves some energy costs. Plus there's the added difficulty of trucking in a 20 ton excavator to dig the holes in the first place. Plus, not all soils are conducive to building below grade structures, some sandy soils make it quite difficult to do.

I've got to say, you seem to be the one missing the point. Nowhere in the article does this say it will "eliminate" casualties, or "stop them from bombing our convoys."

By your own math, 10 convoys that would have been blown up didn't get blown up. That equals less casualties. As cited in the article, fewer convoys means less traffic, less congestion, less chance of traffic accidents - costing lives, equipment, and fuel - again, less casualties.

Lots of maybe / optimistically in my post. Don't forget that from the "other guys" point of view, fewer targets equals increased value of intel data, able to focus your human intel assets more closely, more rifles on target... If you can pull off the perfect attack because you now have twice the time to set it up, maybe doubling the defenders security forces just means you buy twice as many body bags. Its not clear.

And let's not forget that, given the constraints of the number of soldiers in theater, half the number of fuel convoys to guard means twice as many combat patrols out in the field looking for the guys who are planting the IEDs that are blowing up the convoys.

A couple combat patrols can move a hell of a lot faster and pack a hell of a lot more firepower for their size than fuel & supply convoys can, as well, which also has the benefit of helping move the task from "preventing them from blowing up *this*

No, I live in a world where force protection requires a significant amount of man- and firepower, which otherwise could be tasked with patrolling and securing other areas because those troops will not be tied up in escorting convoys through disputed, or even downright hostile, territory.

You are also making assumptions (that the number of martyrs is fixed).

Alternatively, it could be the case that every single convoy is attacked, and on average 20% of the trucks are destroyed. In that scenario, cutting the number of convoys in half will generally reduce the number of casualties by the same amount.

Look at it a different way, without flat statistics. Convoys which posess fuel are attractive targets for two reasons:

1) Fuel is valuable to the military because they need it to realistically operate.
2) Fuel makes a nice explosion and fireball, causing collateral damage.

So, they've shown that by using this tech, they need less fuel supplies to properly operate a base of operations. That means convoys can be sent out without fuel trucks, or with less fuel trucks. This decreases the value of each in

Lots of these loses are caused by military engagement, not suicide bomber. And, convoys are targets of opportunity. You can't decide "oh hey lets hit the scheduled convoy next week" because the schedule is randomized. And you can't say "lets ambush it here" because the route is, too. So if there are half as many of them, sure, it won't be a full half as many attacks, but it will be a lot less. Because with less out there, less will happen to pass close to enemy forces, and thus the enemy will be presen

Then each individual loss will have twice the logistical impact. Also, arguably, twice the terror impact on the folks in the flak jackets, which has all kinds of interesting effect from increased PTSD to increased civilian casualties (itchy trigger finger when terrified)

In other words, though it may shock you to your very core, sometimes occasionally people think about things at least as hard as dedicated Slashbots.

Yes the.mil folks think hard about winning at the.mil game. But this is a PR puff piece meant to amuse the foolish public while posing as all.mil. Outsmarting them is not all that much of an achievement. Especially when we're too smar

No, each loss will have exactly the same logistical impact. The number of convoys is halved because demand is halved. The net effect is that losing one convoy results in the same number of hours without AC (assuming no storage capacity and spare delivery capacity, which is certainly not the case).

Also, arguably, twice the terror impact on the folks in the flak jackets, which has all kinds of interesting effect from increased PTSD to increased civilian casualties (itchy trigger finger when terrified)

Again, no. Under this model (and I'm not commenting on how realistic the model is, just on your erroneous inferences from it), each convoy has roughly the same probability of being attacked/destroyed. No great

And this is an example of an arm chair "analyst" being overly impressed with a model he/she cooked up out of their under-stocked larder of domain knowledge.

Just maybe the U.S. Army keeps detailed statistics on the likelihood of casualties and material losses under field conditions, and knows for certain whether reducing convoy sizes actually drives up loss rates, and has solid evidence to back up expectations that this is a big win.

You're forgetting about something. Those soldiers no longer involved with convoy duties can be used for other things. Say you send those truck drivers home, bring over more intel and infantry. Your 100 future martyrs get to sit around waiting for a new explosives expert to replace the one captured/killed by the additional combat troops.

It's actually rather remarkable: $2 million per day adds up to over $700 million per year, from something as simple as foam insulation. I wonder how many other ways they could save similar amounts of money through equally easy means, if only they weren't given a blank check and felt a little more pressure to cut costs? Why did it take something as extreme as attacks on their supply convoys to make them stop wasting our money in this case? You know how the saying goes: a billion here, a billion there, and

Mongolian Yurts are insulated and reusable and can be set up in hours. Funny that it took them so long to consider having to keep soldiers for extended periods under severe conditions. The military should check in with some of the existing Yurt building companies and see what it would cost to field test some. They should be roomier and as I say reusable. The traditional ones get set up and taken down several times a year and last for many years. The thick woolen insulation with a few layers of kelvar would probably be bullet and explosion resistant, the insulation provides the give needed to allow the kevlar to flex. It just seems like a better option than foaming tents then tossing them once you are done.

The best way to explain kevlar to this audience is to point out that it's a strong polymer similar to nylon that can also extend a lot before breaking, effectively nylon++. It can flex quite well on it's own. The insulation would help absorb some extra shock though and what is described above is a good idea.

a yurt weighs a shit-ton, then it gets wet. it requires care. It does not like the hot dusty UV environment of the desert. Turns out tents, like what the natives have used in the region for thousands of years are a better choice than something from another fucking climate. But thanks for playing. maybe we should try igloos? hey then we dont need AC! cause they are already cold! and i read snow is a good insulator in nat geo. Fuck me!

Why is it in almost every military related article posted here, it inevitably turns political?

Because war and politics go hand in hand.

Funny how the "hippie dippies" are aware of this and it completely sails over your head.

Discussion of technology used in a war situation does NOT always go hand in hand with politics, and this topic is about foam on tents. There's no politics involved, no contractors out of control, no politicians making claims, not even a weapons system; just foam on the tents. The problem is that hippie dippies are unable to discuss military operations without ranting about politics. Only someone with a gratuitous axe to grind links foam on tents to the horror, the horror, the horror...

I'm just trying to figure out why people get the label "hippie" when they complain about war for profit, power and political coin.

I'm not a peacenik, hell, I love weapons. I own weapons. I love a righteous war (like WW II) and I love to see evil scum get blown up, shot up, burned up. yeah, come get some!!

BUT,

I get the label "unpatriotic" "hippie" "traitor" when I complain about these bullshit pseudo-wars that the U.S. is inflicting on innocents, to line defense contractors and construction contractors pockets, and to have a rallying point for politicians who have failed to do their most basic of duties, and to provide an excuse for power-mongers to deprive us of liberties and build a police state.

Because everybody has a driving need to feel really clever and witty, and writing "IMAGINE IF WE ENDED THE WARS!" makes them feel that way. It's completely obvious and predictable, but it's also easy karma on Slashdot.

This is a basic confusion of who makes decisions. Troops go to war because the President/Congress/The People tell them to. If you have a beef with them, this is a democracy. Vote. Don't take it out on the Pentagon for trying to protect its troops.

Besides, if you think about it, this strategy removes targets from the battlefield. Fewer targets mean fewer attacks. Fewer attacks mean less dead on both sides. In Vietnam (remember John Kerry?), they used swift boats intentionally as targets to draw the

Bullshit! The people voted for change, and they got yet another Bush. Obama has continued the elite's agenda of war. Renaming troop's activities doesn't change that the (pointless, for profit, for political coin) wars go on and on and on.

Obama is doing the responsible thing. Cleaning up the geopolitical mess that bush created without thinking things through. It is one of the few things I agree with. Because the moment we leave Afghanistan the Taliban take back over and Bin Laden comes out of his cave again. They are far to strong still. However since the American public thought it would be a quickie kill them off and leave, and let the mess sort it self out like what we did

This time we are sticking around. Hopefully for the next 20-30 years. that way a whole generation grows up not hating the USA but at least thinking mostly nice things about us.

Um, neighbouring countries will just look at this as 20-30 years of US foreign occupation, on the perhaps irrational basis that the US is a foreign country whose military are occupying another country and impacting on the political structure of that country.

Troops go to war because the President/Congress/The People tell them to.

No. Troops go to war because they decide to... they are not automatons. Every single one of those troops has gone to war decided that going to war is the best option for them. You should not surrender your integrity when you enter the service.

That being said, I think _most_ of them made the correct choice, since they have been put in difficult positions. Some may feel the war is just, some may not. For the latter, the negatives against following orders have not been large enough. More responsibility lies with those who decided upon the war, but some still rests with those who carried it out. "I was just following orders" is not an excuse.

The pebbles are made mainly out of graphite, a substance which can burn when exposed to oxygen.

A high-explosive charge detonated in the reactor core would create a shock wave that could potentially fracture the ceramic containment layers and fuel seeds in the pebbles, freeing the flammable graphite and fission products into the environment. A kinetic kill anti-tank projectile would probably have a similar effect.

More than six decades ago, the British had the bombs that could penetrate several meters of rein